


What Can't Be Done Alone (Detective Squad)

by jothending



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Accidental Adoption Of Boy, Alternate Universe - Angus Does Not Find The Bureau, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17830028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jothending/pseuds/jothending
Summary: Angus McDonald is having a lot of trouble finding a lead on this missing-people-who-maybe-don't-exist case. He doesn't come across any moon bases or conspiracies or big memory-erasing jellyfish.Instead, he comes across an odd lich who seems connected to this case in more ways than he can say. And Angus kind of gets adopted, accidentally? You know. It happens.





	1. The Lich in Blue Jeans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is a properly written rendition of [Detective Squad AU](https://umbraastaff.tumblr.com/post/182688745654/heres-a-sudden-idea-for-a-taz-au-angus-mcdonald) on tumblr. Thank you for reading!

The world’s greatest detective is having an unprecedented amount of trouble today. This case just really wants to evade him, it seems. But he can’t give up! Not when all those people are counting on him to find their missing family and friends! Not when there’s a mystery to solve!

It really is such a bizarre case, though.

Nobody’s even certain who they’re missing, not by name or job or relation. There are just shadows of inexplicable memories, too-recent relics of people’s presences within others’ homes. Suddenly, the dishes get washed half as often, even though it was surely a shared chore. Beds are too wide. There is a diary in a single woman’s house, and she cannot read the name inside the cover.

It makes it hard to get a lead. But Angus doesn’t call himself the world’s greatest detective for nothing.

Eventually, he comes across an odd similarity between multiple client interviews. A stranger came and spoke to a few of the families, asking after their thoughts on the supposed missing folks. He never actually did anything but converse, reportedly, but now Angus can find someone who might know more. Someone who knows what--or why--everyone else doesn’t know.

Using the trail of locations where the man recently turned up, and a very distinct description he’s assimilated from the clients (blue jeans, mostly), he tracks the man to a city called Phandalin. Angus finds him walking down the street, just out in the open as though he isn’t involved in any enormous conspiracies.

Angus trots up. “Hello, sir!”

The man blinks hard, adjusting from sunlight. “Uh… H-Hi, kid. Are you… lost?”

“No, sir, I believe I’ve arrived right where I was intending to be!”

“Huh,” the man says, looking instantly warier, but still not unkind. “Why’s that?”

“My name is Angus McDonald, and I’m the world’s greatest detective,” he says confidently. “Are you Sildar Hallwinter?”

Surprised, Sildar nods. “Yeah, um… I mean, I-I doubt I’ll be useful to your--to whatever investigation you’re doing, but th-that’s me.”

People are usually more skeptical about a ten-year-old claiming to be a detective, let alone the world’s greatest, but he seems perfectly willing to accept it. He’s got an odd, I’ve-seen-weirder-so-I-can’t-assume sort of attitude.

“I think you’ll do just fine, sir!” Angus opens up his notebook. “I’d just like to know why you’ve been questioning around about the missing people. Specifically, I’ve been told you were asking after their former occupations and living situations, but nobody could answer, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the--I did do that, yep.”

Angus scribbles in his notebook.

Sildar continues unsteadily. “That’s… r-really the extent of it, though.”

Angus frowns and looks up at Sildar. “That can’t be true, sir. For example, why were you questioning them in the first place? If you have information about this case, it would be absolutely invaluable!”

Sildar shrugs. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know… why you were asking?”

“Correct. ‘Pologies, detective McDonald.”

Not to brag, but Angus is usually pretty good at telling when people are lying. And Sildar seems honest... mostly. At least, he doesn’t seem like he has anything else useful to give.

So the lead wasn’t much, but now Angus has another puzzle piece to deal with in his case--there aren’t just people, there are thoughts and memories going missing! Or at least, it seems likely. It gets harder to think about the more he ponders.

“Well, all right then. Thank you for your time, sir. This was still sort of helpful!” Angus says, snapping his notebook shut.

“No problem, pal. G-Good luck with the case.”

“I’ll be back sometime, though!” Angus waves as he departs.

\--

Angus writes down that Phandalin has burned down, and that Sildar Hallwinter must be, unfortunately, dead. But within hours of writing it, all he can read or remember is the last part--that Sildar is dead. Nothing else… connects. Everything’s so blurry on the page.

Just thinking about it gives him a headache, even though the tip of his tongue feels heavy with answers. What was it? What happened?

\--

Just like in Caleb Cleveland and the Case of Lost Sleep, Angus knows that sometimes, taking a step back can make a mystery fall into place. It’s important to gain new perspectives rather than tie down your ideas and only think in one direction. He takes the case on the Rockport Limited to give himself a break.

Amazingly, he ends up finding even more clues--or rather, more confusing puzzle pieces that he can’t fit in anywhere--from the train. The three men on the train give him a weird vibe, and he ends up finding them connected to some pieces of missing information. A few blank spaces in his notes get filled in, but still nothing substantial. And once he’s got their names down next to the rest of his investigations, it’s suddenly even harder to think about, harder to read.

He wonders if he’s getting sick.

\--

Angus may not be able to remember where or how Sildar died, but he remembers the general area, remembers between which train stops he met the man. He makes his way there to investigate further, hoping to find more clues.

He doesn’t know why he’d expect clues around the man’s death, because he doesn’t remember how Sildar died in the first place, but something about the whole deal doesn’t sit right with him. It begs to be investigated.

He sees a giant circle of black glass, but doesn’t write it down. He can’t even process it. It’s so enormous, but it used to be--it was--it was something, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t. Nothing has ever been here. This doesn’t make sense. What was he doing here the first time? Surely not walking through this desolate field and glassy floor. But where else could he have been?

Using his magic book to track arcane energy, he walks for a few hours before coming across what seems to be a cave in the cliffside. Before he can enter, though, he bumps into an invisible wall. He realizes that everything inside the cave looks dark and blurry, too. It must be heavily warded.

Angus knocks on the invisible wall. It doesn’t make sound. “Hello? Um, I hate to bother you, but I’m here to investigate… er, if anyone’s even in there, that is…”

“Whoa, what’s--uh, hang on,” a voice comes from inside. A moment later, Angus blinks and suddenly he can see a man staring at him from the mouth of the cave. He’s got on a bright red robe, but also the face and signature blue jeans of…

“Sildar, sir! You’re alive!”

The man stares at him, and then his eyes widen. “O-Oh my gods, Angus! You’re alive? I-I thought… I mean, you were… Oh, I’m really glad to see you, bud.” Something’s off about him. As his he gets emotional, it’s almost like his lips aren’t synced to his voice, and sparks fly from his hair.

But then he takes a deep breath, and it seems he’s back to normal. “I-It’s Barry, by the way,” he adds.

“Barry… That’s your name? Not Sildar?”

“Y-Yeah, that was… It was an alias. My name’s Barry Bluejeans. Sorry for the, uh, ruse.” He pauses. “Y-You can come in, by the way. Whatcha doin’ here, kiddo?”

Angus follows him inside. The cave is oddly homely and cluttered, with books stacked up against every wall and underneath a high-school-size desk. A stash of writing and eating utensils are all mixed up in the same bin on the desk, and Barry casts Mage Hand to toss a loose pen into it as they enter.

“Well, I was just investigating around… where I heard you died,” Angus says, the rhythm of the sentence breaking where he can’t find the right name.

Barry waves a hand, and a book that was open on the desk closes itself and floats over to the nearest stack to deposit itself. “F-Find anything interesting?”

“There’s this weird cave,” Angus says, looking around. Above the books, a large map of Faerun is hanging on the wall, covered with labels and markings that he can’t read no matter how hard he tries.

“Fair, fair,” Barry says, amused. He only very slightly misses making eye contact.

Angus looks over him a bit more, trying to place what’s so weird about him. Then, finally, he catches a conclusive piece of evidence: Barry appears to be standing up normally, but his feet aren’t quite aligned with the floor. He’s hovering.

Hovering, and avoiding touching anything.

“You’re a ghost,” Angus realizes. “You… you didn’t live.”

Barry looks genuinely surprised. “S-Something like that. Good work, detective.”

Something like that…?

Angus claps a hand over his mouth. Ghosts don’t stay in the material plane, not without dangerous modifications, and they definitely can’t cast spells. “Y-You’re a… You’re a lich?”

Barry stiffens. Angus steps back, clutching his notebook to his chest like a shield.

“V-Very astute,” Barry says slowly. He consciously avoids sudden movements. “Not the evil kind, though. I-If you were, uh, wondering.”

“Th-that doesn’t make any…” Angus pauses, re-words. “Er, you don’t seem evil, sir, but then why are you a lich?”

“How do I explain this…” Barry puts a hand on his chin. “N-Not all reasons to want power are, uh, good. But some of them are.”

“If… If you don’t mind me asking, sir…”

“What was the reason?” Barry suggests. Angus nods, and he continues. “Saving my friends. [KKSSHHHHGH].”

Angus jolts. “What was--what does that mean?”

“Shoot, was that static?” Barry drags a hand down his illusory face. “O-Okay. Um. Saving my friends. And… fighting… whatever is a problem to my family.”

“Does…” Angus hesitates. “Does being a lich help?”

“M-More than you’d think,” Barry says. “But, uh, listen. I’m not gonna… blow up, or whatever it is y-you’ve heard liches do.” He squints. “I mean, those things happen, but I’m--I have safeguards. It’s fine.”

Most liches probably believe the same, Angus thinks. Yet Barry does seem very calm in comparison to normal descriptions of liches.

Still…

“I think I should get going now, sir,” Angus says. “It’s been nice to see that you’re not… that you’re okay.”

“O-Oh, right, o-okay,” Barry says. “Um, same to you. G-Good luck with the case!”

\--

Angus spends the next day in the nearest town, poring over his notes. They still don’t make any sense.

The morning after that, he decides to head back to the cave again. The ward goes down a little more quickly this time, and Barry greets him with a wave. “Hi, kiddo! W-What brings you back here?”

“Hello, sir! Sorry to bother you! It’s just, I didn’t get the chance to ask much about the mystery last time I was here, and I’m still having some trouble with the facts. I know you didn’t know much before, but now you seem… more…”

“Aware?” Barry supplies. “Y-Yeah, I… I mean, I can d-definitely try, but I still don’t know if I c-can really… if I can help.”

“Any attempt is appreciated, sir!” Angus says hopefully. “Do you happen to remember any more about why you were questioning the missing people?”

Barry frowns and rests his fist on his chin. “Hm. Y-Yeah, but you’ll have to forgive me for being… vague. Um…” Angus waits patiently. “Okay. I have a friend who’s t-trying to… help people. And I think the people who are helping her… are getting [KKKSHHSH].”

“Getting--what was that sound?” Angus asks. “It was just like yesterday!”

“Ah, shoot,” Barry sighs. “Um… It’s a sound for what I physically can’t tell you. It doesn’t sound like that to me.”

Angus slaps his notebook against his own forehead, frustrated. “Are you cursed? Is everyone cursed? A-Am I cursed?

“K-Kind of,” Barry says. “That deduction i-is impressively close.”

“I’m cursed?!”

“N-No, it’s-- ‘everyone’ was more accurate.” Barry crosses his legs in the air, keeping at the same height he was at while standing on the ground. “I think th-that’s as close as you’ll be able to get.”

“Do I need to be a lich to understand this, or something? Were all of the missing people liches?”

“D-Don’t become a lich for that, bud.” Barry idly turns a page of his book, moreso fidgeting than actually reading.

Angus groans. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Look, you’re very smart, and I-I believe if anyone could solve it, it’d be you,” Barry says. “But nobody can. Th-that’s the thing.”

“I can’t just give up!” Angus says.

“Yeah, I get it. I-I’m like that too.” Barry sighs. “I’ll h-help however I can. I mean, I’m already… I-I’m kind of working on something related, anyway.”

“Thank you, sir. I don’t suppose you can explain that, either?”

Barry just gives him a wry smile. Angus sighs and looks around again, for some kind of distraction from this fruitless line of discussion. “What’s that book you’re reading, sir?”

“Oh, uh…” Barry turns it over to display the cover, using a Mage Hand as always. “Fortenald’s 30 Posits on Evocation. He’s… I-I don’t like how he categorizes magic users, but his theorem on how evocation magic scales at high levels i-is pretty solid, so that’s w-what I’m looking at.”

Angus nods, interested. “I don’t know that one, but I’ve read a different one by Fortenald! The book about how wizards and sorcerers overlap and differ.”

“Oh, th-that’s a pretty good one. I didn’t think he wrote in a way that was very… uh, appealing to kids, though.”

“He doesn’t,” Angus says. “Too much circling back on his ideas for any reader, I think! But the ideas were so cool! I didn’t know different casters had so many similarities!”

“Oh, yeah, l-lots of sorcerers actually end up more like wizards later,” Barry says. “The combinations of invoked and innate magic can be r-really incredible.”

“But a wizard can’t become a sorcerer, right?”

“Uh… d-depends. I mean, definitely not n-naturally, but…”

They keep talking well into the day, and Angus finds himself forgetting about his ever-failing case for a blissful few hours.

\--

The fourth time Angus comes to the cave, the wards don’t stop him at all. He can instantly see into the cave, see the stacks of books and the weird machine and the man who is, today, picking through an atlas.

But there’s something odd about Barry today. His robe is more vibrant and pronounced, with almost a glow to it. But his jeans aren’t really visible--it’s like he’s just a floating cloak, hood pulled up, like a proper ghost. And when he turns towards Angus, his face is just a skull.

Angus yelps.

In Barry’s voice, the lich says, “H-Hey, what’s--Oh, shoot, I’m s-sorry--” He waves a hand over his face, and illusion magic warps it until it appears as a face--Barry’s. The rest of his body forms, too, manifesting his jeans and white shirt, a proper body instead of a skeleton-ghost under a cloak.

“Hi, Angus, s-sorry--I attuned the wards to you, b-but I didn’t notice you approaching, s-so I, uh, didn’t have time to…”

“That’s how you usually look?” Angus asks, wide-eyed, finally daring to step into the cave.

“I-I mean, it’s… Yeah, i-it’s the default,” Barry says. “No p-problem to put up the illusion, though, d-don’t worry.”

“I’ve just never thought about it! Even though it’s pretty obvious in retrospect,” Angus says. “You’re a skeleton underneath, all the time!”

“Yeah, I mean,” Barry gives a lopsided smile, “s-so are you, so…?”

Angus laughs. “It’s not the same, sir!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me over at [@umbraastaff](http://umbraastaff.tumblr.com) on tumblr, where I post lots more of my TAZ thoughts and musings.
> 
> Thank you to [Maya](https://windywords123.tumblr.com/) for encouraging me to follow this train of thought for the AU, and to [Katriel](https://unicorn-double-barrel-special.tumblr.com/) for some ideas that appear later. And to both of them (and many others) for being encouraging throughout!
> 
> Hope you enjoy the rest of this fic! I've been having a lot of fun writing it. As always, I eat comments for sustenance, etc etc. Thanks!


	2. The Relic of Goldcliff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus decides to take a leap in his investigation. He encounters a little more than he bargained for.

Using detective case funding to stay near Barry’s cave, Angus continues to visit regularly. Barry doesn’t stop him from looking through the books and maps he’s compiled, but he’s pretty good at noticing when voided information is giving Angus a headache and advising him to take a break.

Angus, meanwhile, gets better at figuring out how to put together pieces of information without being able to get the whole picture. He notes locations that Barry has emphasized in his notes, finds bits of people’s profiles that he can’t read, and sees repeated mentions of that trio he met on the Rockport Limited. Without Barry ever realizing, Angus figures out the next place Barry is planning to investigate.

Barry lets Angus know that he’ll be out one day, and Angus accepts as innocuously as he can when Barry refuses to tell him where he’s headed. He says it’ll be dangerous. Angus thinks he can handle it.

Angus takes a train to Goldcliff the day before Barry plans to be there, and pokes around as much as he can, trying to keep attention off himself. And he’s generally successful, because he  _ is _ just a little kid. The most he gets are questions of where his parents are, and he has plenty of practiced excuses on hand for that.

He spots the Raven atop a building, and her sash especially catches his eye.  _ It’s the key to this case _ , he thinks assuredly. He doesn’t realize that the thought isn’t his own.

\--

“Well, fellas, I think that went great,” Taako is saying as the trio walks towards the police department to collect their reward from Captain Captain Bane.

“You almost repeated this whole nightmare!” Magnus protests, gesturing carelessly with the sash they’ve recovered.

“Oh, so what. You’d be able to handle it.” Taako pauses. “On second thought, no, you guys are incompetent as shit without me.”

“I’ll show you how incompetent my hammer is,” Merle mutters.

“I’d be sad if you were a tree,” Magnus adds. Taako rolls his eyes.

It’s so easy. Angus slips into the building behind them, before the door can even close. He feels his heart pounding out of his chest in excitement--something which, at any other moment, might warrant stepping back and taking a deep breath. Here, though? He  _ needs _ that sash. For… for the case, of course.

Angus snatches it from Magnus’ loose grip far too easily. Magnus shouts and spins to face Angus as he backs away with the relic.

“Whoa, is that the train kid? Mango? Angles?” Merle asks.

“Angus,” Magnus says slowly, “You need to give that back.”

“No, sir, what I need is for  _ you _ to answer some questions of mine, actually!” Angus declares, taking another step back. “Don’t come any closer--tell me why this thing is so important!”

Magnus takes a step forward anyway, when he thinks Angus isn’t paying attention. Angus has never done magic before, but right now, it seems like a very good idea to just… restrain them. Incapacitate them, so they don’t come forward and hurt him and deter the investigation. The investigation is all that matters.

Wood and stone cracks beneath their feet as vines grow straight through it, and Tres Horny Boys find themselves tied to the wall. The vines aren’t tight, but they’re thorny, and the slightest wrong movement could get them stung pretty badly.

Captain Captain Bane is having quite a day. He thought the threat was over when the Raven was stopped. He eyes the wine with Silverpoint poured into it, and then puts it to the side, and pulls out a dagger instead.

Bane steps out of his office and into the hall where a ten-year-old is restraining the Bureau’s top reclaimers with the Gaia Sash. The reclaimers have already resorted to giving direct answers, which just sound like static to Angus, and the kid is looking increasingly frustrated.

He was already planning to poison them for it, but in this moment, Bane realizes how badly he needs that sash. This kid is dangerous with it, and he needs to… neutralize the threat. Get the weapon in his own hands, because he’s the guard captain, and that’s where it’ll be  _ safe _ .

Tres Horny boys have been cooperatively quiet about Bane’s presence, electing to distract Angus so that their fellow Bureau member could get ahold of the sash and free them. But as soon as Bane raises the knife, Magnus yells out, “Holy shit! That’s not--don’t do that!”

Angus turns, sash at the ready, tied around his outstretched hand.

And then Captain Bane’s eyes glow red, and he throws the dagger to the side with a  _ clatter _ . He stumbles, nausea welling up through his system, and collapses to the floor. Then, behind him, there’s a lich in a bright red robe. The reclaimers look at each other, surprised.

“Fuck’s sake!” Barry says, voice shaking even as his tone tries to be stern. “You let go of that!” He makes a flicking motion with his hand, and Angus feels something warring with the inside of his head--the Suggestion cuts through the Gaia Sash’s implanted thoughts, and the next thing he knows, he’s tossing the sash onto the floor in front of the reclaimers.

Angus blinks, his head feeling only halfway screwed on. Barry continues chiding the others, not even bothering to put a rasp in his voice. “And  _ you _ should know that thing’s dangerous, you idiots, keep better hold of it!” The vines around them recede at the command of his continued hand movements, no longer held in place by the Sash’s use.

Then, Barry grabs Angus’ arm, and he suddenly feels steadied. “And you, Ango, you need to learn some self defense, good gods, we’re leaving--” and they both teleport away.

There’s a moment or so of silence in the hall.

“Ohhh,” Magnus says as he picks up the sash, as though some great realization has come to him.

“What?” Merle prompts.

“His grandpa’s a ghost.”

“Ohh.”

“Well that explains why he forgot his name.”

\--

Angus and Barry appear back in the cave. Angus, dazed from both the thrall and the sudden teleportation, stumbles on his feet slightly.

Barry grabs hold of his shoulders. “Angus! Angus, a-are you alright?”

Angus blinks slowly, then coughs. “I… I’m okay.”

“Y-You gave me a real fright, kiddo!” Barry lets go of him and pulls a glass off of his bookshelf. He Prestidigitates it clean, and then shakes it in a circular motion until, somehow, the empty container suddenly has liquid sloshing around in it. He hands it to Angus. “Drink this. For the nausea. You j-just got--just had two mind-control spells in one m-minute, plus you look like a first-time teleporter.”

“I am,” Angus says absently, and drinks it. The dizziness clears within the minute, and his brain feels like it’s  _ working _ again for the first time in… god, a whole day? Why had he been so fixated on that one sash? That wasn’t his original intention at all. “Sir, what  _ was _ that? Why did we leave?”

“A dangerous thing.” Barry holds out his hand, and Angus returns the empty glass. “Don’t--uh, y-you don’t have to call me ‘sir,’ by the way.”

“Oh! Sorry, s--Um, sorry! My parents say it’s polite…” Angus hesitates. “What should I call you, then?”

“Yeah, it  _ is _ polite, it’s just--” Barry frowns. “L-Look, you can call me sir if you want. But I d-don’t want you to feel like--as if you  _ have _ to.”

“Okay,” Angus says slowly. “Um, what else should… could I call you?”

“Barry,” the lich says plainly. “Or… I dunno, anything. I’ve got tons of nicknames. ‘Red-Robe,’ ‘Barold,’ ‘Unrepentant Culinary Criminal,’ ‘That Damned Bluejeans’...”

Angus giggles. “Where’s that one from?”

Barry holds a finger to his lips. “Don’t worry. I’m good at staying out of his way. Usually.”

Angus makes a mental note to ask about that later. “So... can I call you Mr. Bluejeans?”

“S-Sure, or doctor.”

“Whoa, really? What’s your doctorate in?” Something nags his head to question more about what happened in Goldcliff, but at the same time, it’s fading from his mind… and he finally might learn more about Barry, now, anyway.

Barry taps his fingers together. As much as they look like normal flesh hands, Angus can hear the clacking of bone as as the lich speaks. “Uhhh, arcanobiology and theoretical death physics. And an unofficial one in… uh, medical necromancy.” He moves to a corner of the room and drags out a crate, then starts digging in it. “H-Hang on, actually, this could be relevant to--you might like this.”

Angus waits eagerly as Barry digs out a stack of papers. He’s never dared go through it himself, since it seemed more like Barry’s personal things than the bookshelf.

Eventually, after setting the papers on his desk and leafing through them for a minute, Barry hands a few to Angus.

Angus shuffles through the papers. They seem to be various documents and degrees, but not only Barry’s. Some have names he doesn’t recognize--  _ Lup, Davenport, Lucretia _ . And there are some that he does! Taako, Merle, and Magnus’ IDs and degrees are in this stack. He stares at Taako’s, his head becoming progressively emptier as he tries to find the association between the phrases “Taako” and “Assistant Science Consultant.” It’s not that he doesn’t think Taako is smart--he seemed plenty clever, at least--but the words on the page just don’t make  _ sense _ , and he’s not even sure why--

He doesn’t notice Barry’s hand approaching until the paper is being pulled out of his hands. Barry takes Taako’s, Merle’s, Magnus’, and his own documents. “I-I didn’t think that would work,” he says. “But I figured you’d w-want to try. Sorry. The others are still… uh, relevant, though.”

“But where was Taako a… a…” Angus tries, but the words fade from his mind like the details of a dream.

“Harder you think about it, harder it’ll be to think,” Barry says. “D-Don’t worry about it. Can you read the others? They’re… uh, tangentially related to your mystery.”

Angus looks at the papers he has for the remaining three people. “Davenport, ship captain,” Angus reads. It doesn’t make sense, exactly--he can’t imagine this person the way he usually envisions cases, but he can understand the words, at least. “Gnome, wizard, degree in piloting with certificate in exploration…? Sir-- er, Dr. Bluejeans. What is this?”

“Incredible,” Barry says, amazed. Then he snaps out of it. “Um, th-they’re--I don’t think I can explain, exactly. Or else you’ll understand less, probably.”

“What does that mean? How am I supposed to figure out this case if I can’t ever  _ understand _ anything?!” Angus stomps his foot.

Barry turns to him again, startled. Angus freezes in place, and says rigidly, “I’m sorry, sir. Um--Dr. Bluejeans. That was out of line.”

“I’m no military officer,” Barry says good-naturedly. When Angus doesn’t relax, he adds, “A-Angus, buddy, it’s fine. Shit, I’d be frustrated too. I  _ have _ been. I… Ugh. I thought this would help, but this might not have been the best way to, uh…”

“No, wait,” Angus says quickly, hugging the papers to his chest. “I-I’ll figure it out. Even if you can’t tell me. I’m sorry--I know you’re trying to help…”

“But the well-intentioned are n-not immune to mistakes,” Barry warns. “D-Don’t worry, I won’t stop you from reading those. I just d-don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’ll tell you if I get a headache again,” Angus promises.

“Good. A-And let me know if you figure out anything else! I’d love to hear what you find.”


	3. New Places, Old Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone is generally just trying to do their jobs. Angus gets lots of learning in!

Angus does not follow Barry to Lucas’ lab. He’s still spooked from the last time he tracked Barry somewhere. He almost hurt people with that… sash? What did it make him do, again...? Whatever it was, the one thing he’s certain of is that he felt really, _really_ bad about it. And Barry had emphasized that the lab would have dangers of a similar caliber.

And of course, the gravity of, “you could literally get turned to stone, and I wouldn’t be able to cure that,” isn’t lost on him.

So he waits in Barry’s cave, reading borrowed spellbooks that the lich got for him. He could be picking through those mysterious files, and maybe even making progress on his case, but… that’s just been going so poorly.

This actually feels _productive._ He’s learning magic! It could even be useful in his detective work, so it’s not like he’s totally off-task, technically.

\--

“Hi, Grandpa McDonald,” says Magnus. His grin rests on the familiar line between genuine and shit-eating.

“Sorry, w-what?”

“You gotta talk louder, Mags,” Taako advises. “He’s old.”

Merle takes the initiative. “HE SAID HI, GRANDP--”

“No, n-no, I didn’t mean--” Barry drags a hand down his face, and the scraping noise of bone against bone sets all their hair on end. “I… y-you know what, sure. Hi. Th-that’s me! Yep. Let me tell you fucking… whippersnappers… about planes.”

\--

“Hey, Director, are you sure about the Red Robes being evil?” Magnus asks.

Lucretia levels a look at him. He might be taller, but she certainly does well at making herself look imposing. She always has an air of authority, but one-on-one in her own office space, she truly seems regal.

That’s what other Bureau members tend to say, anyway. Magnus thinks she seems like a nice person with a hard shell that he wants very badly to crack. But he thinks this about a lot of people, so he’s also aware of the wide margin of error.

“Absolutely,” Lucretia says, without a hint of hesitation. “They created the instruments of this world’s destruction, Magnus. If they said something nice, I’m sure it was a trick.”

Magnus frowns. “I know, but… Liches used to be people, right? Couldn’t they have a family?”

Some indecipherable expression crosses Lucretia’s face. “Theoretically. Magnus, this is sounding incredibly suspicious. Did you meet a Red Robe?”

“Maaaaybe,” Magnus admits. “Could be anyone, technically. I mean, maybe he’s from a different, non-evil organization of liches in red robes.”

A hint of concern crosses her face and then solidifies back into cold as he talks. “What did he tell you?”

“To be careful?” Magnus shrugs. “Also, he has a grandson, which seems like a non-evil trait.”

Though nothing about her composure shows it, Lucretia is thrown completely for a loop. “He… what?”

“A real kid! We saw him.”

“A-An illusion,” Lucretia says quickly.

Magnus shakes his head. “Could an illusion use the Gaia Sash?”

“A _child_ got ahold of the Sash?”

“Oh, heh…” Magnus laughs sheepishly. “Did we forget to mention that part?”

“You need to have a talk with the damage control department about that one--”

“More like _be lectured by_ \--”

“--And the lich, he _brought_ his supposed grandson into the fray, where the Sash was?”

“Well, see, here’s the thing, Creesh--”

“--Director--”

“Director, uh, madam. The kid was there on his own. The red robe just showed up to take the Sash away from him, and... give it to us? And then he left with the kid.” He squints. “And he showed up again in Lucas’ lab.”

“And you haven’t thought to mention _either_ of these occurrences before?”

Magnus shrugs. “Honestly, I know you’re really, uh, concerned about them, but this guy didn’t even register on the radar of ‘dangerous’.”

“He’s a _lich_ ,” Lucretia says.

“Still, though.” Magnus shrugs. He might be a throw-caution-to-the-wind sort of guy, but that also means he wouldn’t hesitate to tackle a lich if he thought there was any problem. The red robe had just seemed so much like a regular dude who was worried about his kid.

“This is all very concerning,” Lucretia says emptily, a thousand calculations writing themselves behind her eyes. Her fingers twitch as they resist miming the writing. _Could_ Barry have a grandson? Even if he’d sired a child the moment they came to this world, it hasn’t been long enough for a third generation to emerge.

Perhaps he could have adopted, but even then, why call himself a grandfather? He might be nearly 150 years old, but it’s not like he looks it.

“Grandson,” Lucretia repeats. “You’re sure he said that?”

“Absolutely,” Magnus says. Sometimes, in Magnus’ head, facts get confused with things he made up and forgot weren’t true.

Sometimes, Lucretia forgets that Magnus has this problem. His face is just too trustworthy.

“Well, Magnus, thank you for confiding in me,” she says, thankful for her long-developed skill at disguising panic. “I’ll, uh, process this information. In the meantime, just try to avoid the red robes. We still have no real reason to think this isn’t a trick.”

\--

Barry returns to his cave to find Angus nose-deep in a Basic Spellcasting book. It was written for adults who have never used magic before, not really for kids his age. Angus seemed so interested in the theory behind everything, though. Barry wasn’t sure any of the spells would stick in his head unless he knew the underlying physics, which don’t really get explained in depth in kids’ spellbooks.

“H-Hey, bud! How’s the magic comin’ along?”

“Hello! Dr. Bluejeans! The cantrips are going well!” Angus says. “And there’s a low-level spell I’d like to try out, but it might not work on you.”

Barry shrugs. “Why not try?”

“I suppose that’s as good a justification as any!” Angus stands and picks up the innocuous-looking fork on the table next to his book. It’s an old arcane focus that Barry is lending him for magic learning, a durable thing that’s had many a spell channeled through its prongs over the decades.

Angus points it tineways at Barry and wills magic into his next spoken word. “Approach.”

The choice of spell startles Barry enough that he doesn’t think _not_ to resist it, so a roll of 28 keeps him rooted to the spot. In retrospect, with that disclaimer, perhaps he should have expected an enchantment like that.

Angus looks disappointed, but Barry lights up. “Whoa, nicely done! I-I really felt that.”

“But it didn’t do anything...”

“I’m a hundred fifty or so and a lich,” Barry says, “A-And I _wanted_ to walk forward! Give yourself some credit, kid. Not just a-anyone could do that.”

Angus’ posture rises slightly at that. “Thank you, sir.”

Barry is already digging around under his desk, shuffling books and papers until he finds one specific manual--a rather thick book titled _Studies in Enchantment_. “Th-this is a good one if you want to hone that specific, uh, type of spell, though. Real useful for j-just--for avoiding fights altogether.”

Angus takes it in his hands, interested. “I remembered that you used, um, a spell sort of like that, on me? When I had the…” he pauses. “When we were in Goldcliff.”

“O! Y-Yes! That was Suggestion, actually, but Command might’ve been, uh… more efficient, come to th-think of it. Basics are always important.”

Barry taps the cover of the book. “Practice the level-one spells more, and Suggestion sh-should come as a natural continuation--I can teach you a method even better than this book has when you’re ready, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay!”

“Enchantment spells are really--they’re sort of a tricky school of magic, ‘cause you h-have to get in somebody else’s head. I-It can be easier when you know the person better, but h-harder emotionally…”

Angus turns the chair around and sits down in it again, facing Barry. He’s always been a better learner with books than with listening, but Barry also usually explains these things way more clearly than the books (and he can ask questions, besides), so he doesn’t mind these occasional impromptu lectures.

“B-But you--you’re good at reading people, I think. S-So you should have an easier time, uh--You can customize those spells to the person. You know, s-some folks just fling the spell at everyone the same way, and… Well, one-size-fits-all configurations j-just aren’t viable for enchantments…”

\--

It’s been a long day for Kravitz. A long few weeks, really, following the indignities he suffered in that crystal-covered lab. Not that he minded everything about it; getting Taako’s contact information was a good spoon in the mix, though of course it was purely for professional purposes.

But today Kravitz has been drowning in paperwork, trying to find the right forms to deal with a band of necromancers hopping between four different dimensions. It wouldn’t usually be his jurisdiction, but they’re dragging an army of Material Plane zombies along with them, so he has to deal with that.

When he takes a break from paperwork to go bounty tracking, he’s looking for a simple catch. He likes a challenge, of course, but so many of his targets end up depressing, or just making him angry, or… Oh, no.

Of course, it’s always on the worst days that he encounters his most tiring target.

Miles outside of an old, Gauntlet-burnt town, he can feel traces of the familiar spellwork of Barry Bluejeans. The magic is completely without warding or disguise, although the spells are fairly weak. It would be reasonable for Barry to not worry about anyone finding him, unless someone just happened to come close enough to notice… which is exactly Kravitz’s situation.

Kravits descends on the grassy plains, scythe at the ready. He alights gracefully on the remnant of an old fencepost. Barry is facing away from him, making the motions for some basic spell, but then he… doesn’t stop. His arms keep moving to the tune of an increasingly complex spell, and it begins to look like a dance.

At the end of it, he spins around to face Kravitz, one leg kicked out to the side and his arms outstretched, doing jazz hands. Then he winks, and fog rises up from the ground until Kravitz’s vision is completely obscured.

“Augh!” Kravitz yells, sounding far more inconvenienced than he is. He doesn’t really need eyesight to detect a lich in close proximity, but it’ still annoying. He jumps onto the ground. “What the hell are you doing out here, Bluejeans?”

“Language!” tuts the lich’s voice from nearby.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Before Barry can respond, a smaller voice pipes up, entirely unfamiliar to Kravitz. “No need to censor for me, sir! I can handle curse words!”

“I-I know, kiddo. I didn’t mean for you. My buddy here is from the Celestial Plane, wh-where it’s illegal to curse. I’m just trying to heeeelp,” Barry says in a silly voice, and the kid laughs.

“Wh-what--” the reaper splutters, and then he settles on saying, “Is that a _child?_ ”

“Y-Yep. Kravitz, Angus. Angus, Kravitz. I’m teaching him magic. This is Fog Cloud, by the way.”

Angus saw Barry do spell motions similar to Fog Cloud, and he hears the claim now, but… the field is still perfectly clear. Then again, this Kravitz guy isn’t really looking at them--he seems wary, but he’s staring into space instead of directly watching Barry.

Angus is starting to suspect that somehow, Barry cast some form of the spell that would only affect Kravitz. Maybe it’s an illusion! That’s definitely not part of the normal version of the spell.

“Really, now,” Kravitz says. “What kind of trap is this? I’m not falling for any of your blasted shenaniganry.”

“I mean,” Barry says slowly, “You did… arrive.”

Kravitz abruptly jumps backwards and slams his back into the fencepost, doing a frantic sweep for undetected magical traps.

Barry laughs. “I-It’s not a trap. This is a real magic lesson. S-Speaking of, Ango, this is why one never forgets to cast a ward. Sometimes rogue magic can attract… danger.”

“Spreading the dark arts to the younger generation, then, are we?” Kravitz asks, holding up his scythe as he takes a step forward. “I thought you were above this, Bluejeans.”

“M-Mostly enchantment, actually.”

Then Angus speaks again, distracting Kravitz from coming forward yet again. “Kravitz, right? Who are you, exactly, sir?”

Kravitz pauses, thinking of some way to put it simply. “I’m the clean-up crew for criminals like your teacher, I’m afraid.”

“He’s not bad,” Angus says definitively.

“Doesn’t matter,” Kravitz responds with equal certainty. “He broke Celestial law. You should really keep away from him.”

He hears a whisper make its way through the fog--Barry’s voice. “I-It’ll be fine. Just stay back.”

Angus does step back. He gets the sense that, if Kravitz really can’t see anything, then he could end up as collateral. Just when he’s barely far enough, Kravitz takes a swing, and the enormous blade cuts the air far too nearby.

Barry continues to duck and dodge each stroke of the blade, and Angus moves off to the side as he transitions into spellwork. It’s nothing like the slow casting he does when he’s demonstrating to Angus--the motions are so condensed, they can barely be interpreted before the blasts are fired. The vocal components are reduced to grunts of exertion. Angus can’t possibly hope to follow along with what’s happening.

Angus instead concerns himself with walking around the battle, being sure to give it a wide berth. He notices Barry sparing him concerned glances, but his only response is a brief thumbs-up before he steps behind Kravitz.

He notices that when Kravitz dodges a spell, it doesn’t hit him--they start curving off to the side as soon as they’ve missed. It must be Barry angling spells away from him. Angus has to work fast so Barry doesn’t have to make that extra effort for long.

Angus ducks down into the tall grass with his magic fork and starts scraping lines into the dirt. The roots of the grass get in the way, but he manages a workable rune circle anyway. It approximates a pattern that he saw in one of Barry’s journals.

The notebook probably wasn’t meant for him, admittedly, but Barry _had_ told him that anything on the shelf was free game. The fact that Angus waited for Barry to be out before reading it, instead of asking outright, was… incidental. At least he could say he’d stayed away from pages that gave him a headache, like Barry always requested.

The spell he’d seen was to banish someone to another plane. Something based on cleric spells, adapted to wizarding methods. And Kravitz was _from_ another plane, right? Barry had said Celestial, so he puts the symbol for that plane in the center. Even if he’s not supposed to be there, if the man works for a god, he should be able to get a ride out without too much trouble. Probably.

Angus moves to the side and gestures to what he’s drawn. Barry rises up in the fight, making it look like he’s trying to get a better angle on his spells, but he’s really looking over Kravitz’s shoulder at Angus’ handiwork.

Then Barry lands on the ground again, and magic forms around his hand. He shoves Kravitz, sending him stumbling backwards with a yelp.

Just as Kravitz steps into the circle, Angus sticks his fork on the ground and starts activating it. He’s never done anything like it before, but in theory, he just needs to channel magic into it like an extension of his arcane focus--

Suddenly, stronger magic washes through the ground, shorting out his connection to the circle. The fork burns briefly in his hand, forcing him to let go of it. He sees the circle glowing brightly under Kravitz’s feet. The tip of Barry’s foot is poking into the front of the circle to activate it, and the size of it has them standing far too close together for Kravitz’s comfort.

Barry has Kravitz by the tie, grinning from ear to ear. Kravitz doesn’t seem able to do much about the situation, his scythe gone and his arms hanging limp at his sides. The partly-complete banishment spell has him rooted in place, unable to move away lest he tear himself apart.

“You seem giddy,” Kravitz says bitterly.

“I’ve got such a good kid!” Barry chirps, and then he lets go of Barry’s tie. Free of the grip, Kravitz leans back, and he vanishes in the next moment.

Then Barry leans down to inspect the runes, which now have a crust of burnt plant matter from the magic energy channeled through them. He traces the lines with a finger, and his other hand picks up the fork that’s still lodged in the ground.

Barry shakes the heat out of the utensil, then points it at Angus. “So--”

“Did you mean that?” Angus blurts anxiously.

“Oh--Yep. Yes! Just look at this!” Barry makes a sweeping gesture at the runes, a motion that almost feels too big for a circle so small. He twirls the fork in his fingers. “You did great! A-And if we’d had enough time, I b-bet you could’ve executed it, too! Have you ever done rune magic before?”

It doesn’t answer the question, but Angus blushes with pride nonetheless. “Never,” he admits.

Barry rises up and ruffles the kid’s hair, and uses his other hand to give the fork back to Angus. “Th-this needs insulation. Actually, you j-just need a better focus. I’d barely expect it to work for such a high level spell. Testament to your skill th-that you even got it started!”

“Can’t any focus cast any spell?”

“Jeesh, I mean--sure, you can pick up common quartz from th-the ground and use it to astral project, but your signal’s gonna be shit.” Barry turns the fork and points it handle-first at Angus.

“Sir, you can use a random rock as a focus?” Angus asks, taking it.

“I-In a very dire situation, sure. Not the most useful skill--m-might as well learn to cast with no focus at all.”

“That’s what you do, right? I’ve heard it’s very dangerous.”

“It’s--yeah, if you don’t know what you’re doing, it can… I mean, I have a free pass. I’m a lich. Y-You’d need some s-serious control, a-and… Well, I can teach you when you’ve g-got more advanced magic under your belt, if you’re interested.”

“It sounds useful!”

“It is. A-And speaking of magic, this training sessions f-forcibly bein’ put on hold before I get found again, sorry. You ready to go?”

Angus nods.

“Fantastic,” says the lich, leaning down to cup his hands under Angus’ arms. He pulls the kid into his lap before snapping his fingers, and suddenly it’s much darker than the field.

Angus is briefly disoriented as his eyes adjust to the cave’s lower light level, and he grabs the lapel of Barry’s robe to steady himself. Barry just hovers cross-legged in the air, letting Angus sit in his lap.

“Are you really a criminal?”

“Oh, th-the worst,” Barry says passively. But then, noting the genuine concern lacing Angus’ voice, he adds, “B-By his standards.”

“But I thought he enforced laws,” Angus says. “ _Celestial_ laws. Isn’t it really bad if you break those?”

“You’re a detective,” Barry says carefully. “Y-You’ve… Have you ever come across folks breaking laws for good reasons?” Or, at the least, he suspects a series like Caleb Cleveland would have something like that, and Angus idolizes the protagonist quite a bit.

Angus hesitates. He truly doesn’t think Barry is bad or dangerous--he’s sitting in his lap right now, for goodness’ sake. But he believes in making judgements only after knowing the truth. “Well, what’s the reason?”

“Hmm…” Barry looks up at the ceiling and sways as he muses, rocking Angus. “I-I’ll try to explain, but you--uh, just promise me you won’t overthink it. It’ll be difficult as is.”

Angus nods, despite every instinct to protest. He gets the feeling it’s a static-thoughts thing, even if Barry’s avoiding that wording. And anything he can get is better than nothing at all.

“I used to work at a university. Along with my family, a-although they did--well, they weren’t my family yet.”

“So you adopted them?” Angus asks, and then mentally curses his wording. He already imposes enough; he doesn’t want Barry to think the topic’s stuck on his mind, even if it is.

Barry doesn’t seem to notice, though. He just laughs. “K-Kind of.”

There’s information in Angus’ mind that should be connecting--names and faces that he _should_ suspect as Barry’s family--but they stay bound to the tip of his tongue. _Don’t overthink it_ , he remembers.

“We met when we got a-an assignment together, to, uh… research a dangerous topic. But there was s-someone who… who didn’t want us to do that.” Barry glances at Angus, making sure he doesn’t look confused by any static. “He was hurting us. A-And other people, too.”

“Couldn’t you have just stopped doing what the university assigned, so he would stop hurting people?”

“It was too late. H-He was already… too far gone, you know? So we had to stop _him_ , instead.”

Angus nods slowly. Usually, he likes to envision stories as he hears or reads them, but he’s having trouble conjuring the images for this one. So it all feels a little muddy in his head, but he has the general idea.

“So I became a lich t-to avoid collateral damage. Because people were in danger. M-My family was in danger.”

Angus thinks for a long moment. “I think that’s a good reason,” he decides finally.

“Well, I-I’m glad you think so. I’d hate to lose your company.”

Angus giggles, then asks, “Why did they end up as your family from that?”

A fond smile crosses Barry’s face, reminiscing. “Th-they were people I’d trust with my life, and I… I could never stand to lose them. Sometimes that’s family.” He wraps his arms around Angus and squeezes. “It just sort of happens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [@imstuckathome12](https://imstuckathome12.tumblr.com/) drew [wonderful fanart](https://imstuckathome12.tumblr.com/post/183934804600/id-a-flatly-colored-digital-drawing-of-lich) for this chapter! Check it out!
> 
> By the way, next chapter wasn't part of the posted bullet-point-draft at all. New content comin' up :)


	4. Battlefest Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for a very special birthday!
> 
> Anyone remember the Boston Live Stunt Spectacular?

The sun sends Angus’ shadow splaying through the entire cave as he approaches, tapping a pen in his hand. Barry is up high, adding notes to his wall map. He looks down and smiles as Angus crosses the threshold.

“Hello, si--Hi!”

“Hi, kiddo. Everything okay?” Barry asks, dropping weightlessly to the ground.

Angus is instantly conscious of the fidgeting he’s doing with the pen. He puts it in his pocket, and his fingers intertwine instead. “Oh, um! Yes! I’m perfectly--I’m great!”

Barry raises an eyebrow questioningly, and puts a hand under his chin, without losing the smile. “Well, what’s got you so great?”

Angus takes a huge breath. “The Battlefest Supreme Champion Finals are next week, and I can’t go without a chaperone because I’m just a little boy and I don’t think they would let me in even if I pretended it was for police work, because nobody believes I work with the police anyway unless I can verify it but I can’t do that if I’m only pretending--”

“Thought a lot about the crime version of this situation, huh?” Barry says quietly, a little amused.

“And it’s exactly on my birthday!” Angus says. “So I’d really like to go.”

Barry straightens up. He hadn’t realized Angus’ birthday was so soon. “How ‘bout that! Gonna be visiting your folks, then?”

Angus freezes. “Oh, um, that’s… No, sir, they’re far too busy for things like that!”

“Too busy for your--?” Barry stops himself. “Right, uh. Th-then how are you going to…”

Angus avoids eye contact.

“Oh,” Barry snaps his fingers, “Oh! Uh, do you want me to take you?”

Angus looks up again, hope mixing with nerves. “If it’s not too much trouble--I know you’re very busy, and you have to hide here a lot, so I don’t want to cause any problems or anything…” He’d already worked up the nerve to ask, and here Barry was making him repeat the question.

“Angus! Of--of course I can take you.”

Angus blinks, snapped out of his worried train of thought. “Oh! Thank you! Thank you so much!” He bounces on the balls of his feet. “But, um, are you sure it won’t be a problem?”

“Not an unsolvable one.” Barry winks. “Uh, d-do you have tickets to this show, though? If it’s in a week…”

“Yes! I got them a little while ago!”

Angus wrote his ‘parents’ a few months ago when he first saw the tournament’s date. It was a formal request to go and an invitation to accompany him, without any mention of his coinciding birthday. Their response came several weeks later: an envelope with two tickets, to ‘go with a friend.’ They couldn’t come because of ‘prior commitments.’

“Fantastic!” Barry grins. “Th-then make sure you get here bright and early on your birthday, yeah? Actually, t-tell me the date so I can mark it in my calendar…”

\--

Angus arrives before even the break of dawn, his hands moving almost as fast as his mind is. “Hello! Are you ready? The next train is in half an hour! I’m worried about later ones filling up very fast, because of Battlefest, and if we start walking now we’ll just barely reach town in time…”

“Whoa there, birthday boy! Slow down.” Barry’s been pacing up and down the cave, double-checking his warding spells for the better part of the early morning. “Got the tickets with you?”

Angus reaches into his pocket and brandishes them. “Of course!”

“Now, where did I put… Aha.” He picks up a pencil from his desk and holds it up. “In case of magic.”

“Is that… also a wand, Dr. Bluejeans?” Angus asks. Did Barry just enchant all of his mundane, handheld objects into foci? Angus wouldn’t want to assume that, of course, but it would certainly match his whole... aesthetic as a person.

Barry shakes his head. “It just looks like one, at a distance, s-so nobody’ll get freaked out if I have to cast something by hand.”

“Oh, okay!” Angus rocks on his heels. “Are you ready? We should get going!”

“Hey, hey,” Barry says, standing next to Angus and clapping a hand onto his shoulder. “C’mon, I’m not gonna make you head back down to town after you walked all the way here.” In the dark, no less.

A familiar wave of magic washes over Angus, melting the cave away from around him. The scenery gets brighter and brighter, until finally he manages to blink the light out of his eyes again, and they’re standing in an alley.

“Couldn’t you have just met me at the inn where I’m staying, then, sir?”

Barry stares at him. He hadn’t considered that. Angus makes such a habit of coming to the cave that Barry nearly forgot he was actually staying in town. “Uhh, _some_ walking is good.”

“Also, why don’t we just teleport the whole way? I mean, we don’t have to! But I don’t see why not, if we can teleport into this town! Is it tiring to go a further distance? I’ve read that you have to warp space further, but also that once you have it down, the distance doesn’t matter so much. Or is it harder because you have to take me with you?”

That one Barry can answer. “Big magic burst, going that far,” Barry says. “I-I’d usually only risk that on my own, and going to a s-safe spot, like my cave. Otherwise it might, uh, attract our favorite reaper.”

“Right! That makes sense! Can we go to the train now? It smells weird here.”

“Yes, yes! Let’s go!” Barry follows the boy onto the street, and adds in a whisper, “Tell me if my face gets weird anytime, by the way. C-Can’t let the illusion falter out here.”

Angus spins around, walking backwards to face him, and squints at Barry’s face. Then he gives an approving thumbs-up and turns back around. Barry smiles.

\--

Barry approaches the ticket booth just behind Angus, and speaks up quickly before the kid can. “Two tickets towards Neverwinter, please.”

Once the teller hands them over, Barry gives one to Angus. “Thank you for getting that, sir,” Angus says, not ingenuine but automatic, cordial, reigned in. His excitement has slowly been leaning into proper anxiety over the last few minutes, and this seems like the peak.

“Hey, you’re the one giving me a free Battlefest ticket. ‘Least I can do is cover the ride,” Barry says. Angus smiles at that, but it still looks stiff. His whole demeanor is anxious again.

They sit down on a bench to wait the remaining twenty minutes for the morning train. Angus bounces his legs, antsy. “I guess that’s fair, sir,” he says, well past the natural conversational beat for the response. He doesn’t seem so robotic, but the excitement from earlier hasn’t fully returned, either.

“Though there’s no need to, um… I know you’re just coming for me, I mean. Which is fine! I’m really grateful, it’s just, you don’t have to pretend or anything--”

“I-I-I don’t know h-how I _couldn’t_ get excited,” Barry stutters as he cuts into the oncoming ramble. “After how well y-you’ve been talking up Jeff’s suplex all week?” Barry grins encouragingly.

Angus tenses. “I haven’t been talking too much about it, have I?” The moment he voices it, he already knows the answer. Barry has been so nice, taking time out of whatever important work he’s doing to help Angus with his mystery, and teach him magic, and lend him books. And Angus pays him back by talking his ear off and dragging him to Neverwinter for a whole day.

“Not at all,” Barry assures him. “I’ll admit I haven’t been caught up with Battlefest lore in a while, but you’re getting me excited again! And their news is pretty rare in the paper here, so you’re my main source.”

Angus swings his legs, then nods. Barry grasps for something to pull this conversation back around. “S-Speaking of the paper. I saw yesterday--did you hear that Brock Thickstone is out of commission?”

“What?” Angus instantly jumps up from the bench. “How? Who’s Jess’s new partner? It’s so late for that to be announced!”

Barry shrugs. “Don’t know! It-It’s a surprise, apparently.”

“A ploy for public hype?” Angus muses. He puts one foot up on the bench, rests an elbow on his raised knee, and points a finger upwards. “Or… stalling for time?”

“Good question.” Barry suspects the second, on account of Brock Thickstone’s indisposition being his own death. Which is also kind of a worrying thing to happen so close to the tournament. He’s glad he’s going with Angus, in case anything happens during the tournament. “Which do you think?”

“Both, I bet!” Angus says. “Think about it. If he isn’t able to compete, they need time to figure out a replacement! I’m sure they know who that is by now, but if they only announce it during the tournament, that’s way more dramatic!” He crosses his arms proudly.

“Or a third option,” Angus continues, “Brock really _is_ going to be there, and this is all toying with people’s emotions, because they’re mean!” He thinks for another moment with a frown. “I doubt it, though. That’s not usually their style.”

He goes on until the train arrives, with Barry’s pieces of encouragement fueling the continued musing. The station slowly fills up with more people, but still less than Barry expects will be around later in the day, so taking the early train was probably a good choice.

“Where do you want to sit? I’ve sat in most places on a train, and I find I like sitting backwards the most, unless I’ve been sitting that way for a long time, because then it feels normal again. But we can sit anywhere! What’s your favorite train location?” Angus asks as they board.

“C-Can’t say I have a whole lot of experience with the matter, so I’m gonna follow your lead.”

Angus ends up sitting backwards next to a window, with Barry beside him. “You haven’t been on many trains?”

“Nah. I-I’m more familiar with, uh, ships.”

“Oh, I’ve never been on a boat, sir!”

“They’re… somethin’,” Barry says fondly, leaning back to look out the window, over Angus’ head. “Maybe we can get you a ride on one sometime.” If all goes well--no, _when_ all goes well, he can show Angus the ship that he’s ridden many times over. Barry never shared the Captain’s penchant for actual seaworthy boats. He’s too prone to seasickness.

The train starts to move. Barry’s startled, already having forgotten that they’re seated backwards. It isn’t terribly crowded, as he expected, but he suspects it’s going to fill up as they get closer to Neverwinter.

“You suspecting any plot twists?”

“Oh! Well, like I’ve mentioned, Sabine is still mad at Jess, which means they might… Ooh, maybe Sabine sabotaged Brock! And he’ll return for revenge!”

“Th-Th paper’s wording was more, uh…” Very not-sponsored-by-Battlefest journalism, to be sure. “I think the guy’s like, actually down, not fake-down.”

“Oh…” Angus swings his feet in thought. “Wait! Maybe Sabine and Jess are going to get back together! And then…” He raises his arms up in the air. “Jeff Angel would do a _double_ suplex!”

Barry crosses one leg over the other. “Now that’d be exciting!”

“He’s really good! And I don’t know as much about Moonbeam or Death Man, but I bet Jeff can take ‘em! He’s been doing really good this season. A lot of people don’t like him, but they’re just being grumpy because he’s new!”

\--

As they start navigating the packed Neverwinter station, Barry conjures a Mage Hand over his own illusory one, like a tangible glove, and takes Angus’ hand. “L-Let’s not get separated, bud.”

Angus nods. Once they’re out of the station, they follow the crowd’s general flow to a large square, and Angus points up at the clock tower. “We’re very early! And there are already so many people!”

“Excited folks like us! Let’s go see where everything is.”

Before they even reach the ring in the Chaos Theatre, Angus ends up equipped with a giant pretzel and a Jeff Angel T-shirt. Barry brushes off the ridiculous gift-shop rates with excuses like, “You haven’t eaten anything today,” and “Happy birthday!”

Besides, Angus seemed nervous surrounded by so many people wearing cosplay and merchandise, and Barry doesn’t want him feeling like he’s not fitting in. He knows the feeling all too well.

They find their seats not long before the event is supposed to start. Before the house lights go off, a figure in a work uniform flies off the catwalk and into the crowd. The way the people react, just carrying him along to the back of the room in a wave, Barry wonders if that’s just normal fare.

Then the house lights dim, and after a short delay on the spotlight, the fighters are introduced. Jess the Beheader is first into the hexagonal ring, followed by her partner, I’Morko.

Angus boos them enthusiastically along with the rest of the audience. Barry just squints at the stage. That’s… That’s Magnus. Dressed as a bear, as his Elvish title would suggest. Of course he’s a fighter themed as a bear.

It’s barely worth wondering why or how Magnus is fighting here in the first place. He always got pulled in by sports and fighting events, all throughout the century, whenever he had the free time for it. From what little Barry can make out of his face, though, he doesn’t seem pleased about his role in this particular fiction. Barry laughs quietly under the audience’s yells.

To his credit, Magnus adapts to the role rather quickly, and makes an effort to play the part. He makes clawing motions as Jess throws paper-mache heads into the audience. As they spread into the ring, he also sees Merle emerge outside the ring, doing jazz hands, donning a pinstripe outfit covered in chains. That kind of wardrobe is standard fare for him, though.

If Merle and Magnus are both here, then Taako can’t be far. And if he isn’t announcing himself to the audience, then he’s _definitely_ doing something questionable backstage. Whatever it is, Barry hopes it doesn’t interfere with the event, for Angus’ sake.

The other fighters come in, and indeed, none of them are Taako. Queen Sabine’s entrance could almost live up to one of his, though. And one of the fighters looks like a bugbear, which is potentially concerning, but he can only assume precautions are in place in case he gets aggressive.

Jeff Angel comes in to entrance music that Barry recognizes from Angus’ humming, now played on loud trumpets and accompanied by a mixed audience reaction. Angus is cheering at the top of his lungs.

Some part of their old sense of cooperation must have stuck through the memory wipe, or maybe they’ve just relearned it, because Merle starts the match by casting Aid on Magnus. Jeff Angel turns invisible, Sabine and Jess get into their own clash, and Moonbeam goes straight for Magnus.

Magnus gets pinned, and Barry can see he’s struggling, until Moonbeam suddenly falls off of him. It’s as though he was shoved off by some invisible force.

Angus cheers for Jeff’s move. Barry’s natural Truesight indicates _two_ invisible figures now on the arena, and the one that just fell on Moonbeam wasn’t Jeff.

When Merle tosses a ladder to Magnus to fight with, Barry feels a whole lot less concerned. This man has an unnatural amount of experience wielding woodwork. And it doesn’t hurt that the ladder knocked Jeff out of invisibility on its way over, either.

Jeff Angel retaliates with a flying kick, which gets more cheers than boos (and Angus is screaming). Barry involuntarily flinches as Magnus staggers back.

Then Moonbeam charges at the remaining invisible figure, forcing him into the crowd’s vision as well. And this one wasn’t a fighter introduced at the start.

“Ah, there he is,” Barry says.

“What?!” Angus shouts.

“Taako!” Barry shouts back, pointing.

Angus squints back at the stage, and then his hands cover his mouth in realization. The gears in his brain almost visibly turn as he identifies Magnus and Merle as well. He turns back to Barry with wide, questioning eyes.

Barry just shrugs and grins. “No idea!”

Then Moonbeam uses the ropes to jump ten feet in the air and suplex Taako, the very fragile wizard. Barry tenses up. He’s seen less aggressive hits knock the guy out.

But Taako gets up, and rather than retaliating, he just points his umbrella upwards. Barry stands up. How did he not notice Taako’s arcane focus the last two times they met? And where the hell did Taako _find_ it? Where did he find _her_?!

A cloud of poisonous gas shoots out of the umbrastaff, covering the catwalk and muffling the stage lights. Angus grabs Barry’s hand and pulls him back into his seat, shouting an apology to the audience members behind them.

Moments later, the poison cloud suddenly descends into the arena, pushed down by an unnatural gust of wind. Barry frowns deeply.

“W-What’s going on?” Angus asks, sounding concerned. The audience is starting to run off, now, and Barry stands up again. This time, Angus stands with him. But Barry doesn’t run away with everyone else, so neither does Angus. “What’s Taako doing?”

Barry walks down the aisle towards the stage, followed closely by Angus. “I-I don’t know.” As they get near enough, he innocuously flicks his palm, disguising the motion of a counterspell. The giant cloud starts to disperse, making the fighters onstage visible again. They all look weakened, and Jeff Angel appears to be out cold.

The ground quakes beneath them, sending more of the audience running. Up on stage, a woman with a Chameleon Robe falls into the ring from the catwalk. She slowly picks herself up, propping her weight on her staff. She’s still coughing the haze of poison out when she says, “I don’t know… which one of you is working with Garrigos… but I don’t have time to wait anymore and figure it out.”

Angus tries to grab the edge of Barry’s cloak, feeling anxious, but his hand passes through without the lich noticing. He pulls out his arcane fork instead, and fidgets nervously with it.

The woman introduces herself as Marie, an acolyte of Tempus, god of honorable battle, and explains the ancient ritual being cast by the Supreme Champion Finals to summon the evil Garrigos.

Barry looks a lot less nervous than Angus feels. He’s casting his eyes around the room, seeming almost distracted. Then the ground shakes again and he instinctively glances back at Angus, checking that he’s still present and well.

Five enormous, clawed, red hands rise up from the ground, and then reach down as though pulling something else from the depths. The body of a forgotten god.

Jess begins dragging the half- and fully-unconscious fighters up the ramp, out of the arena. “You guys got this!” She calls out encouragingly, as Death Man runs past her with far less faith to offer.

Now the whole building is shaking so much that one of the pillars comes loose, and it falls right towards Barry and Angus. Angus yells and ducks behind Barry, pressing his fork into the lich’s side (through it, really). Barry just points up at the pillar, which crumbles into a harmless shower of pebbles. He feels Angus’ magic shape itself around him: Mage Armor.

“W-When did you learn--Good instincts!” Barry tells him quickly.

“Face--Your face-- _skull,_ ” Angus replies, wide-eyed.

“My--? Aw, shit,” Barry says. The magical exertion broke his illusion of having skin.

Up on the stage, Marie points her staff at Barry in horror. “A lich! Are you working with Garrigos?”

“Oh, boy,” Barry says.

“Angus’ grandpa?” Magnus says, finally looking in their direction. “And Angus?”

“My _what?_ ” Angus asks, bewildered.

Barry pats him on the shoulder. “Th-they have… some, uh, misconceptions.” Then, to Marie, he waves and points a thumb over at the announcer’s table. “I think your guy’s over there.”

Behind the table, in a cushioned chair, the CEO of Battlefest is laughing with a mix of Evil and relief. Merrick draws a dagger across the front of his robe, cutting it open to reveal a bright red orb. The swirling clouds inside glow menacingly.

Taako summons a large, intricate chest, which pops open to show Magnus and Merle’s real weapons. The pair quickly partakes in the goods.

One of the giant hands goes to slap Taako, who casts Bigby’s Hand to high-five it out of existence. When another reaches for Angus, Barry casts the same spell, but instead he simply has it grab the opposing hand. He gives it a handshake like a far younger man trying enthusiastically to ace an interview, and then slams it to the ground, where both hands shatter.

“Don’t steal my ideas!” Taako shouts from the arena. Barry just responds with an exaggerated shrug, and he moves to attack another one of the hands.

Magnus hits Merrick with a huge axe swing, sending the orb flying, but it’s quickly caught again by Merrick’s red Mage Hand.

Not one to let an attack go to waste, Magnus immediately picks the ladder back up and swings it clean into the CEO, knocking him over and causing the Mage Hand to dissipate. The orb goes hurling out of the arena, into _another_ Mage Hand, but this one is blue. It pulls the orb down to Angus, who then takes it in his real hands.

Barry, too occupied by his own hand fight to do anything about the orb, sees Angus catch it and yells, “Oh, fantastically done! A-Are you okay? It’s not--It isn’t hurting you, r--”

Angus gets punched from behind, sent flying by a fist nearly the height of his entire body. He clings instinctively to the orb, but his fork escapes his fingers and skids far beneath the audience chairs.

“Angus!” Barry shouts, but in his distraction, he’s pinned by another one of the hands. The one that struck Angus looms over the boy again as he struggles to stand up.

With his one free arm, he unzips a pocket in the fabric of reality and pulls out the pencil he put in this morning. He throws it to Angus. “Hey, happy birthday!”

The hand over Angus spasms for a moment as though burnt, and it’s just long enough for Angus to pick up the pencil. It morphs in his hand, dropping the illusion coating it. It’s a wand, with a dark wood handle not much longer than the pencil was, and a golden star at the tip.

Angus rolls over onto his back and points the new wand up at the approaching hand. A sparkling bolt, like a moving firework, shoots from the tip. With a critical hit, it bores straight through the palm, and the hand shatters in place.

Barry cheers and kicks away the hand that’s over him. He gets into a wrestling match with it. He gradually heats up until the hand starts disintegrating each time it makes contact with him, and it soon falls apart entirely.

“Thank you! Um! W-What do I do?!”

“J-Just keep hold of it, okay, I’ll make sure nothing else gets you--”

Marie shouts over to them urgently. “Give it to me! Give it to me, trust me.”

“Or that!” Barry says. Angus obeys, sending it over with another Mage Hand.

“Magnus, uh, I really like your costume!” Marie shouts. “It looks really cool, and I like your character, I think it’s really well thought out.” She holds the orb close, and the remaining giant hands recoil in pain.

“Oh, I-I see,” Barry says.

“Wanton violence and destruction is what summons Garrigos! The only thing that can banish him again is the opposite of that,” Marie explains, and she tosses it to Taako.

“All the spells I cast tonight worked super good and they were really dope and it was awesome!” Taako gloats, to no avail. He rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay. Hey, red robe grandpa dude! That handshake move was actually dope, alright? And not _just_ because you were using my idea!”

That dims it a little bit. He passes the orb to Magnus.

“It’s been a pleasure fighting with you, Klaarg,” Magnus says to Moonbeam. “You are a worthy opponent.”

The bugbear growls. “Yeah, I know. You’ve almost killed me six times getting me to do things you want me to do.”

“But I also know that you have a good heart,” Magnus says, determined.

“I don’t! I’m a big--I’m--” and then Klaarg goes entirely rigid, to Barry’s alarm. “Thank you, Magnus. I really wanted to hear that,” says the bugbear, his entire demeanor now perfectly calm.

Magnus tosses the orb, and Klaarg gets started on some long prattle about how great the boys are. Barry is increasingly unnerved by the change of heart, until--

Klaarg goes rigid again, and then he starts rushing at Taako, orb in hand. The weakened hands start regenerating, empowered by the aggression.

Barry casts his own Mage Hand to steal the orb from Klaarg, leaving Magnus and Merle to defend Taako from the ensuing tackle. “Hey, Angus!” Barry calls out as the ball drops into his hand.

“Uh--um--yes?” Angus struggles to tear his eyes away from the action in the arena and face Bary.

“I-I’m really glad you brought me here! I know it got k-kind of, uh, it got derailed a bit, but it means a lot that you shared it with me, something that excites you this much! You-You’re doing so well, Angus, at your magic and logic and everything else, and it’s, it’s really incredible--”

He’s punched in the side by one of the hands. It’s severely weakened, but it has the full advantage of surprise, and the dimming orb flies out of his hands. Angus rushes forward to catch it.

Barry is grabbed around the middle by the hand, and it slams him repetitively into the ground as he tries to reorient himself. Being incorporeal, he’s hurt less by the actual impact than by the hand itself. The malevolent energy threatens to seep into his being from all around, like poison. But he can’t figure out how to escape without being violent.

“You’re a really good teacher!” Angus shouts. Barry cranes his neck to look at Angus upside-down. “And you’re really nice, even though you don’t have to be, a-and you’ve been the biggest help ever on the biggest case I’ve ever worked on!”

The hands writhe as he speaks, too weak to even try to stop him. The one around Barry shrivels and drops him. He catches himself, floating just before he passes through the ground.

“And you’re really good at magic and you’re the best parent I can ever remember having and I love you!” Angus finishes, the words coming out almost faster than his breath can keep up. He looks down at his hands. They’re covered in dust, and so is his shirt--the orb has already disintegrated, taking its final hit from his genuine words.

The hands all retreat into the ground, dragging Merrick down with them. Barry rushes over to Angus. “I love you, too! And look, you did it!” He lifts Angus by the waist and spins around.

Angus laughs, somewhere between relief and elation taking him over as the adrenaline fades. He grips Barry’s sleeves tightly until the spinning slows. They’re cold to the touch, as are the lich’s hands, but somehow tangible this time. “H-Haha--I did! I… Are the other fighters okay?”

“Good question,” Barry says, setting him down. He shouts up to the arena, “Hey! Where’s Jeff and the others? They okay?”

The people in the arena are having their own dramatic ending. Klaarg is on his knees in a Zone of Truth, crying as he pours his heart out to Merle and Taako. Magnus has been distracted, now staring at the title belt that’s fallen into the center of the arena.

Merle turns to Barry. “Oh, they’re totally dead!”

Angus looks horrified. “Oh, for--Merle, don’t do that,” Barry says. He shakes Angus’ shoulder. “They’re not--H-He just does that. They’re not dead.”

“Yeah, they’re fine!” Jess’ voice comes from the edge of the stage. She’s descending the ramp again, walking straight for Magnus, but still addressing Barry and Angus. “Not in fighting condition, I’ll give you that, but they’ll all be fine, kid.”

“Oh! Thank you, Miss Beheader!” Angus calls back.

“Thanks for the help, everybody,” Jess says, pointed more at the boys onstage now. “As for the title belt… A duo can compete in the Supreme Champion Finals, but only one of them can take home the belt.”

She reaches for it, but Magnus puts his foot down in front of her.

Jess stands back up and grins. “Yeah, why don’t we fight for it?”

Barry looks at Angus. “W-Well, I know we missed out on some of Jeff’s moves, but…”

“I still want to watch this!” Angus says quickly.

“W-Well, in that case, we’ve got front row seats.”

\--

Angus is long since asleep by the time the train rolls into their station. It’s late evening, and the sun has set. Barry carries him out of the train. He doesn’t know where Angus is staying, and he really doesn’t want to wake him up, so he walks behind a building and teleports back to his cave instead.

Hopefully nobody sees the cloaked figure vanishing into a dark alleyway with a child and thinks it’s a kidnapping.

There isn’t really a good place to sleep in the cave. When Barry’s alive, he usually just lies in a sleeping bag behind a pile of books, which he’s sure does wonders for his back. He’s not going to do that to Angus.

Instead, he rearranges the furniture until there’s enough space to conjure a decent bed. It should last at least twenty-four hours--more than enough for a night’s sleep. He sets Angus down on it and pulls up the covers.

Then Barry sighs and moves to his desk, and he begins to write in his notebook. Garrigos doesn’t have anything to do with his goals, _hopefully_ , but the rift the fallen god just tore in Neverwinter might be worth a look later. It would make for a massive source of energy in a fight, if Lucretia’s plight ends up attracting the Hunger.

The rain starts lightly outside, then gets heavy enough for Barry to reinforce the shield that holds back water and wind. He lets the sound come through, though, slightly muffled. It’s always been relaxing to him, and hopefully to Angus too.

\--

Angus wakes up to a dim room. Everything feels wrong as it comes into focus. The sound of the rain is too close, echoing through the walls instead of pattering on the window. The air smells of earth instead of dust, and the light on the wall dances and flickers against uneven stone.

He holds himself still instinctively, afraid he’s been captured. He forgot to put Alarm spells around his inn room! Today of all days!

But as he looks around more, he sees familiar shapes--the desk, that crate full of books and documents, and the slime pod with the indistinct humanoid shape inside.

Once Angus is certain, he sits up, which raises his eye level above the desk. Barry is hunched over it, writing. He looks up when he catches the movement, and smiles softly at Angus. “Hey, look who’s up.”

“Um, what’s… how long have I…”

“You fell asleep on the train, a-and I don’t know where you’re staying, so I brought you here. It’s…” He glances at the clock, which Angus can’t see well from his angle. “It’s about 10 PM.”

“Oh. Thank you,” Angus says, his wits returning slowly. “Is-Is this your bed? I don’t want to--”

“I don’t sleep,” Barry reminds him. “You--You’re welcome to it. I mean--” He looks outside, towards the dark rain. “I-I can get you home--er, to the inn--if you w-want, but you can sleep here, too.”

“Thank you,” Angus says. “I like the rain.”

“Me, too.” Barry smiles and turns back to his writing.

Angus doesn’t lie down yet. He just sits in the bed for a few long minutes, mulling over the day. He finds himself still hung up on an earlier conversation, and keeps replaying it in his head, looking for the flaw. Until finally, “They’re not my parents, by the way.”

Barry looks up. “Huh?”

“The, um. The people who wouldn’t… who were too busy to take me to the championships.” He rolls his eyes, not looking at Barry. “They’re just… babysitters. Barely.”

Barry nods to show that he’s listening, but he doesn’t break Angus’ train of thought by responding.

“They’re just people with a nice house. My grandpa paid them to take care of me before he died, a few years ago, but they were rich before that. They just give me whatever I ask for so they don’t get in legal trouble, because I could sue them for neglect to get the money grandpa paid them.”

Angus sways forward and back as he continues. “I don’t stay there a lot. They don’t really care where I am or what I’m doing, so long as I send letters sometimes so they know I’m not dead or something. I know real parents aren’t like that.”

“It’s good that you know,” Barry says quietly, intertwining his fingers and resting his hands on the desk. “Some people are… th-they’re stuck because they don’t.”

“You’re way better,” Angus says, before he can think better of it. “I meant that. You’re the best parent I’ve ever had, and you’re not even really my dad! Technically.” He tacks the last word on quickly, uncertainly. Just speaking the sentence gave him a rush of anxiety that he hadn’t realized was festering inside him, and he stares intently at his own fidgeting hands as he waits for a response.

Barry is quiet for a few seconds, which feel like hours to Angus’ racing mind. He’s definitely going to realize that Angus actually wants him to be his dad properly. Or worse, he’ll think Angus _doesn’t_ want that? Or maybe he already considered himself Angus’ parent, and now he’s upset Angus didn’t think so. Or maybe he only ever considered himself a teacher all along--

“I could be,” Barry’s voice finally breaks the silence. “You’re a great kid. I sure wouldn’t mind.”

Angus turns to him, wide-eyed, relieved. Barry stands up and goes to shift the candle on his desk, a movement that takes him closer to the bedside. Angus gets up on his knees and lurches into a hug. Barry remembers at the last moment to make himself corporeal. It’s a tiring ordeal after everything today, but entirely worth it.

“N-Now, I don’t know the legal nonsense very well, b-but you can bet I’ll fight to hold on to you,” Barry says. His tone is light, but genuine.

Angus squeezes him tighter, and laughs a little bit. It’s clear from the sound that he’s crying as well. “Thank you.”

“O-Of course. Love you, kiddo.”

“I love you too.”

\--

Far later in the night, when Angus is deep asleep, Barry sits at the edge of the cave. The rain is softer now, having hit its peak in the evening.

He leans against the cave wall right next to the barrier. As a lich, he can’t breathe in the smell of the rain, but he lets the cool air pass through him.

His mind won’t stop drifting back to the umbrastaff, and why or how Taako had it. “Whenever we find you, Lup…” he whispers, voice completely drowned out by the light rain. He turns to the figure in the bed, slowly rising and falling, and smiles. “...I hope you don’t mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A revision to the overarching fic summary: Okay, so maybe not so accidental.


	5. Trust Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Barry keeps almost every promise.

“Hey, I-I’m gonna be out tomorrow--Errand. dangerous stuff. If you come by the cave, just--just wait for me, okay?”

After the incident with the Sash, Angus stayed behind from Lucas’ lab and Refuge without question. And here, he says, “Okay!”

So it’s with no worry of being followed that Barry makes his way to one of the most dangerous places in the world.

…

The last party to enter Wonderland today is just one person--a child, wielding only a star-shaped wand and a bothersome amount of determination. After how nervous he saw Barry act about this “errand,” there was no way Angus would let him do this alone.

Even if he’s a kid, with less experience, who isn’t immortal--he has magic skill! He can help, he’s certain. After all, he’s smart! He figured out where _this_ place is, anyway.

“Damn, that’s a kid,” Lydia says, peering down at him through the eyes of her hologram.

“Yeeeep.” Edward crosses his arms. “Hey, kid, we don’t usually do this, but are you sure you want to be here? This is--it’s kind of an adult thing, mostly, the whole suffering game thing. Not a lot of fun kidsy activities.”

“I’m mature,” Angus says, more confidently than he feels. “I’m looking for someone who came here.”

The elves look at each other and shrug. Free suffering is free suffering, as far as they’re concerned. No use getting all moral about it just because there’s a kid in the mix.

Thile the Bureau’s reclaimers lose time, beauty, and memories, Angus loses: crossbow proficiency, the memory of the first case he ever solved, and half of his left ring finger (“you’re small,” they said, “so we’ll start small.”)

“What’s even your limit? Would you let a kid in here?” Taako asks, not that he particularly cares. Just making conversation to distract them from Magnus staring into space, at the red lich only he can see.

Lydia and Edward look at each other.

“I mean, yeah.”

“Free suffering. Kids scare easy, so…”

“We’ve even got one in here right now.”

“That’s awful!” Magnus shouts, and then covers his mouth as dark smoke spews out. He strains for optimism. “I mean, uh, I’m sure they’re… fine!”

Barry isn’t.

Magnus sees the lich dive headfirst through the floor.

Barry hates passing through the smoky darkness between rooms here. It’s thick, the horrid emotions try to leak into him, and unlike the nighttime his lich form can see through, it’s _dark_. Pitch black, with no hint of light until all of it blasts his senses at once as he breaks through the other side.

“I-I won’t give up my literacy,” Angus is saying below him, voice shaking. Above the door, the single sacrifice light becomes two. The liches leave him for their other patrons while he hesitates about spinning again.

A chill runs up Angus’ spine, heavy and cold, and it settles in his head. And then… it speaks, louder than his own thoughts, in a familiar voice: {Angus! Angus, are you okay?}

Angus almost speaks, but then he clamps a hand over his mouth and thinks hard at the presence instead. {Barry? I’m sorry! I’m really sorry, I thought I could--}

{Don’t worry about that,} Barry says quickly, firmly. {We just… Ack. They’re gonna detect me in your head when they get back.}

Barry is doing an admirable job of disguising his feelings, but he _is_ inside Angus’ head, and they’re hard to miss. Barry is _afraid._

{What do we do?} Angus asks, trying desperately to keep calm over the double dose of anxiety rising in his head.

Barry retreats to his own thoughts, leaving a long moment of quiet in Angus’ head.

{Okay,} Barry says finally. {I think our best option is… I need you to really, really trust me.}

{I do,} Angus says without hesitation. {What do you need?}

{No, just--I’m gonna try something, and it might feel scary,} Barry says, {But I need you to remember that I’m right here with you, and I’m not gonna let you go. Okay?}

Angus doesn’t know what that means, but they’re running out of time, and he can’t have Barry leave again. He allows himself just enough time to take a deep breath. {Okay.}

Abruptly, Angus can’t breathe. He feels like he’s drowning. His consciousness is being dragged down, losing its grip on his mind. His sense go out one by one, leaving the room silent and dark and the stale air taste like nothing. For one terrified, betrayed moment, it feels like Barry is taking over his body, leaving Angus’ mind to the oblivion below his consciousness--

But as the sound outside dims, as his own panicked thoughts filter into background noise, he hears--feels--Barry. Not above him using Angus’ senses, but down here in the dark with him, whispering reassurances like mantras. {I’m here, Angus, I’m here, stay calm, just let go, I’ve got you, we’re gonna be okay}

Outside, on some half-conscious autopilot, Angus’ body stumbles in place, desperate to keep balance. As his soul mixes with potent magic, his heart rate speeds up, and his eyes open again. He sees only magic, and the room is a blinding white.

Then his eyes adjust, slowly, and start seeing normally again. He realizes that he can feel and hear, too. His skin is cold and the thought of why he’s here hurts his head. He so badly wants to know everything he was just thinking about moments ago, but he can’t.

And he isn’t Angus. But he isn’t Barry, either. “We didn’t want them to detect two people,” he whispers, halfway an explanation and halfway a discovery. “So we’re one person.”

Several worries flood him as the implications sink in, but the biggest one is instantly assuaged: this is only temporary, he’s certain. They’ll split apart once they’re out.

There are two sacrifices left on the wheel. The first lands on Mind.

“Whoa, there! I’m gettin’ a _way_ juicier read on these memories, suddenly. Were we going _that_ easy on this kid?” Edward remarks.

“Guess we must’ve been! Sorry, kid, these are _way_ too good to hold back on, damn,” Lydia says.

He feels thankful that, seemingly, their understanding of his memories is still vague enough that they don’t think it’s all that weird for a ten-year-old to have as much experience as he does.

“How about you forget a language? Let’s say… Primordial? That’s an exciting one, but it can’t be all that useful in everyday life.”

“Fine,” he says, before he can give it too much thought.

For the second sacrifice, they ask for the rest of his finger.

He refuses.

It goes in a circle like this a few times: they ask for something of Barry’s, like a memory or a book of his that Angus brought in his backpack, and he accepts each one. He even takes _”Bad Luck,”_ which he knows he can handle together. But they always follow it by asking for something of Angus’, like ten years of age or memories of his grandfather, and he always refuses.

It’s on the third cycle that he accepts the fact that the wheel is rigged, and they’re determined to take something physical from Angus before this round is over.

This time, Lydia suggests, “How about your eye?”

The idea twists his gut, but he knows he has to do it. “Okay.”

“Ooh, he’s finally up for it! Okay, which eye? We’re not unreasonable.”

He rolls the thought over for a moment. “Left.”

For a moment, he sees smoke around his left eye, and then it sees nothing. He brings a finger up to it, and when he meets no resistance, the hand flinches away. He doesn’t dare touch any part of the inside.

In the next room, he chooses Trust, and his opponent Forsakes. For his poor luck he faces off against something monstrous and draconic, something ready to tear him apart to within an inch of his life.

He points Angus’ star-shaped wand at it, even as electricity bubbles in his core. It takes effort to redirect the magic up through his arm and point it with the focus, but it destroys the monster all at once.

The elves still haven’t returned, so he takes his chance. He’s been watching the smoky aether flow between solid and gas, shifting from walls to air and back again. He grabs a chunk of it from the wall and bites down on it. It’s bitter, and hateful, and _powerful_. It makes his chest seize up the way a sob would.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, looking at his half-missing finger. “I-I should’ve realized.”

And then he shakes his head, perhaps forgiveness or jus re-focusing himself, and he stabs his wand into the wall. As he drags it out again, a glob of the magic sticks to it, still connected to the wall by a gross string. He watches it for a moment, and then flings it at the ground.

The blob trembles and rises up, following the directions he gives with the wand. When it comes up to his height, he stabs the wand into it again, and it re-shapes itself into a door. The wand is stuck inside, right where a keyhole would be. He turns it.

The door opens easily, and he steps through. Taako, Merle, and Magnus all look very confused.

“Angus wasn’t a boss,” Magnus says.

“That’s not--Wait! Oh, shit! He had an evil twin all along!” Taako declares.

“I’m not Angus,” he says, “And we’re not going to fight.”

Merle frowns. “Oh, yeah? Who are ya, then?”

“I’m Angrry.”

He leads the three of them through the door, and this time it goes to the liches’ lair. The trio is instantly ready to fight, but Angrry points his wand from even further back than Taako, unwilling to put his--the--himself in danger.

In some other timeline, some other world where Angus was never here, the liches might have done something nasty to Magnus, their easiest target. But here, they’ve seen the mage who made a portal straight into their home base, the half-lich with far more power than a child should have, pointing that little star-shaped wand at them like some kind of joke.

So, instead of the easiest target, they choose to hit the biggest threat.

“Bad luck,” they say, and ring the bell.

He screams.

The clanging sound resonates against his skull, threatening to tear him apart, and he struggles just to hold himself together, to keep Barry from being pulled away--and he’s just Angus now, he realizes. He’s numb with panic. He isn’t entirely out of his body, but he can see the back of his own head.

Barry is behind him, in lich form, clinging to Angus’ half-formed ghost, until he realizes what he’s doing. A portal to the Astral Plane is behind them, and he’s dragging Angus towards it. “Shit,” he says, “I-I’m sorry!”

He lets go. Angus barely has time to scream, “NO!” before he’s back in his own body, with his own senses, seeing through his own singular eye. And there’s no portal in sight.

\--

Kravitz is already having a pretty terrible day, being thrown around this whirlpool of souls, before he sees Barry Goddamn Bluejeans overhead. The lich looks preoccupied, flying back and forth like he’s trying to find something.

“HEY!” Kravitz shouts, spluttering as he spins. “HEY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

“Oh, shit,” Barry says, finally looking down. “Kravitz?” He takes one last glance at whatever he was looking at before he flies down towards the reaper. He comes in close, but not near enough to offer aid.

“The hell is--ACK! What the hell is going on? What did you do?!”

“Nothing?” Barry says, watching him spin with that unreadable skull face. “Well--I-I mean, a lot, actually, but that’s not--”

“Then _fix_ this, Bluejeans, I swear to her Majesty--”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Barry says, with such desperation that it makes Kravitz close his mouth, although all the spinning is making him want to hurl.

“L-Look, Kravitz, I can help you, b-but you’ve gotta--you can’t kill me. Just give me--just, uh, twenty-four hours? Of not reaping my soul?”

“A-ACK--Again?” Kravitz’s head submerges, then surfaces again. “Fine. Fine!”

“It’ll be the last time, promise,” Barry says, floating down close to him, arm outstretched. Barry’s hesitation finally cracks, and he swoops down into Kravitz’s path. Kravitz takes the outstretched skeletal hand, and Barry drags him out of the grip of the thick slime.

As soon as they’re entirely above the sea, Kravitz pushes Barry away. “I can fly myself, thank--” he begins, and falls the moment he’s free.

Kravitz yells, trying to summon the Raven Queen’s power, to fly--it’s usually so effortless here! Why is he so heavy? The air rushes past his ears, and he’s inches from falling back into the whirlpool when he’s yanked upwards by the back of his collar.

“So,” Barry says from above him, “d-don’t do that.”

Kravitz reaches up behind himself to grab Barry’s arm, and he anxiously twists about and climbs up Barry to get a better grip. Barry accommodates the movement awkwardly, trying to get a more stable hold on Kravitz as well.

Kravitz ends up with his arms hooked around Barry’s neck. “You--Don’t do--You can’t fly.”

“I noticed,” Kravitz says dryly.

“The Celestial Plane is being cut off,” Barry says. “So, uh, the Raven Queen--”

“How?” Kravitz asks, the waver in his voice almost imperceptible, or so he thinks.

Barry looks him in the eyes. They’re considerably too close for comfort. “The apocalypse. I-It’s today, and it’s a-awful, and we _have_ to get to the Material Plane before shit goes down.”

Kravitz swallows. “You know only one of your eyes is glowing?”

Barry just stares at him. His skull may be inscrutable, but the action is not. It’s unnerving to see Barry like this, faceless. He almost always puts on an illusory skin when talking to someone, and Kravitz doesn’t feel he’s fully appreciated how much it… well, _humanized_ Barry until right now. Of all his bounties, the only one who cared to have a decent conversation.

“Look,” Kravitz says, “I don’t know what to do! I can’t call on my own god, apparently, and you’re the only other person here who isn’t properly dead, so can you do something?”

Barry hangs his head back. “No,” he admits. “I-I just got clocked by my own damn bell. I can’t do shit.” --

“No!” Angus shouts again as his soul reenters his body.

“What happened? Are you okay?” Magnus asks.

“Please--Sirs, please, we have to get him back! Please!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Taako raises his hands--just a momentary gesture before he turns his attention (and his umbrastaff) back to the liches. “Get who back?”

“My dad!” when they look confused, Angus clarifies, “The-the lich! With the red robe? You’ve met him!”

“That’s your _dad?_ ” Magnus says.

Taako rolls high enough on Arcana to remark, “It looked like he, uh, fell into another plane, pal.”

“Oh--Oh, god, we have to do something!”

“ _We_ don’t anything,” Taako says. “There’s liches to--”

The bell rings again, while they’re distracted, because--well, the first time didn’t work all that great, did it? No empty bodies to possess, anyway.

Magnus staggers, and then stands, and Edward is gone from the elven pair. “Hey,” he says, “Here’s an idea. What if you guys stayed here?”

\--

Kravitz has transferred into a piggyback position on Barry’s back, so the lich’s hands can be free.

“You’re sure you can get us out?” Kravitz asks.

“‘Bout to find out,” Barry says.

A rift opens above them.

Barry squints. “Well, th-that wasn’t me.”

“What--is that to the Material Plane? Go!” Kravitz commands, and leans towards it as if to steer Barry.

Barry obliges, but he stops just short of crossing over. On the other side, there’s… Magnus. And behind him, Taako?

Through the portal, far below, Taako’s body lies catatonic, and Magnus’ body is giving some kind of speech. Merle is staring in the vague direction of the rift, his eyes unfocused with the energy of a spell. Angus is clinging to his arm, begging and being shooed away.

Magnus’ ghost hears Barry and turns to him, confused cogs turning in his head. “Barry?”

Barry takes his free hand, face constructing itself just long enough to warmly smile, then fading back into a skull. “Hey, bud.”

On the ground, Merle reaches up with one arm.

“What are you doing?” Angus asks.

“Concentrating. Shush!” Merle snaps.

Barry watches a golden shape grow out of Merle’s arm. It forms a giant hand behind Taako, and it grabs onto the wizard’s dislocated soul, who grabs harder onto Magnus, who tightens his grip on Barry’s hand.

“H-Hold on,” Barry says to Kravitz, though he’s already clinging tight.

“Why are you two so _heavy?_ ” Merle says as he pulls, but then he sees the entire four-person party he’s yanked out of the Ethereal Plane.

Immediately, Barry sets Kravitz down on the ground and runs to Angus. “Hey!”

Angus tries to hug him, crying, but Barry doesn’t have the energy to make himself tangible, so they just mime the motion together.

“You’re back! Where were you?”

“Had to, uh, detour to the Astral Plane. Quick errand. Couldn’t find any good tomatoes on the whole Material Plane, you know, and they’ve got the best produce--”

“Oh, right,” Angus chokes out a small giggle through the tears.

“Okay--Sorry to cut this short, I gotta--I need to borrow something from Magnus, real quick, before this gets worse.”

“What are you going to--?” Angus tries to grab Barry’s hand, but his fist clenches on air.

“Five minutes, I promise. Stick with Kravitz!” And Barry drops through the floor.

“Wait--” Angus falters, and he’s gone. He turns and looks at Kravitz, who’s been hanging back, staying out of the liches’ sight. He looks so shaken, so far from the righteous confidence Angus saw in him before. Taako is in front of him, wand out in defense, so Angus goes to stand behind Taako with him.

Magnus, now a mannequin, is locked in a fight with his body, until his body freezes and staggers again. Then it holds up a finger in a ‘wait’ gesture, which startles mannequin-Magnus enough to make him pause. Then a lich goes flying out of Magnus’ body’s back.

“On second--uh, _third_ thought, I think, uh, maybe we should hold onto this thing, huh?” Not-Magnus says, raising the bell. His hand is closed around the clapper to keep it from hitting the sides. “I-I mean, it seems pretty handy. Wonder who made it? M-Must be a cool guy.”

Mannequin-Magnus snorts at that, and then wonders why he did.

Not-Magnus spins to face Wonderland’s liches, both now in their incorporeal forms and severely weakened. “Y-Y’all were wildly inefficient, by the way. A whole _ring_ just to punt a soul out of a body? A tap of a Q-tip could do that, I bet.”

“Barry?” Angus says hesitantly.

Not-Magnus turns briefly and waves to him. “Hi, bud.”

Then his smile drops and he faces the liches again. “Y-You two really went all out, you know, h-harassing my brothers and son all day. And that’s uh, hm, r-real shitty? So a-allow me to say, on their behalf and my own,” he raises the bell and flicks it. Magnus’ neon green painted nail gives a dull _plink_ against the metal. “Get fucking wrecked.”

Edward and Lydia scream. The bell tears into their souls, trying to break them apart.

Taako walks up next to Barry, umbrastaff at the ready. Barry puts a a hand on his shoulder and murmurs, “I-I got a kid’s eyes on me, so, uh. You wanna do the honors?”

“Duh,” Taako says, pulling away from his touch as a stranger would. He’s already aiming the staff.

Barry moves over to Mannequin-Magnus, who leans back from the sight of his own face without his own expression. “Hey, Mags. Let’s get you back in the right body, huh?”

Magnus just stares at Barry--or at least, he seems to be, as well as he can without eyes. “Am...Am I going to forget again?”

“Just for a little bit,” Barry promises, patting his wooden arm. “B-But hey, it’ll cure you that headache, too.”

Magnus hesitates. “I… I can’t forget again.”

The umbrastaff goes tumbling past them, spurting traces of smoke and flame from a fight that it can barely contain.

Barry glances at it, oblivious. “Where did he get that?” he asks softly.

“It was like a year ago, uh…” Magnus taps his chin. “Skeleton in a cave? It disintegrated as soon as Taako took it. It, uh, it had a red robe, just like… you… oh.” His hand raises up to cover where is mouth would be. “Oh, no.”

“Hey--Hey, no problem, n-no problem,” Barry says quickly, shakily. “It’s just--W-We don’t know any more than b-before, then, right? She doesn’t need a body. She could be any--”

He’s interrupted by a shriek borne of grief, of the bonds that shatter when an exit is inequivalent. Lydia’s dying breath molds loss into tempestuous fury, and darkness washes over them all. It is cold like a storm with none of its comforts, no ambient rain or slivers of sun, only the winds that refuse to find peace.

When it passes, Kravitz is on his knees, clutching at his chest. Taako runs to him as Angus runs away, towards mannequin-Magnus.

Magnus is staring at the ground where his body just was, now a pile of dust and gear. He only turns as Angus comes up next to him.

“Sir? W-Where’s...Where is he?”

“I don’t…” Magnus’ hands drop to his sides, clenching and unclenching, restless but helpless. “I don’t know.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wahooooo, we're finally getting past the tumblr bullet point version!
> 
> This might actually be more than 6 chapters, but I won't change the number on the fic until I actually write it & confirm that...!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I eat comments for fuel! You can find me at [umbraastaff](https://umbraastaff.tumblr.com) on tumblr!


End file.
